Investigation of the Automatic Sorting Machine Based on PLC - Pneumatic System

Abstract Automatic systems have been extensively significant in the Malaysian industry, especially in manufacturing, electrical, and electronic sectors, as Malaysia is a major contributor to the country’s manufacturing exports. This is due to the high demand for the product, and Malaysia is a resourceful country that excels in producing high-quality products. Sorting is one of the manufacturing processes that involve arranging items based on a set of criteria to classify and group the items that will further be stored in the correct place. The manual labour hired in this process causes inefficiency in work, significant delays, and leads the worker to fatigue, which tends to result in visual errors, overlooking the product, and consequently may affect the customer. This study aims to comprehensively assess the sorting machine’s capabilities by evaluating its sorting speed, accuracy, and adaptability to diverse materials through a prototype of an automatic sorting machine based on a PLC-Pneumatic system that may enhance work efficiency in the industrial sector. The pneumatic cylinder will be used to sort the items with respect to the sensor that gives the signal upon the detection of the type of material. The programming of the PLC is done using Siemens Step7 MicroWIN software. Through this method, the automatic sorting machine surpasses the manual sorting method in terms of power and efficiency.